ChannelCore started as a marketing agency, built to help brands scale profitably. But after working closely with both content creators and brands, it became clear there was a bigger opportunity, to build the infrastructure the creator economy truly needs.

That’s why ChannelCore evolved to a tech platform designed to help content creators operate and scale their business while giving brands a new way to run influencer marketing like a true performance driven channel.

My journey to this point has been anything but traditional. I started as a music teacher and later became a touring musician, where I learned the power of creativity, discipline, and connection. Those experiences taught me how to perform under pressure, adapt quickly, and lead with purpose.

When I transitioned into marketing, I quickly made an impact leading teams, driving revenue growth, and building scalable systems. I rose through the ranks to become a 2x CMO, leading marketing strategies that scaled brands from $1.5M to $6M, $16M to $31M, $64M to $200M, and even $750M to $1.2B. In 2024, I was recognized as a CMO to Watch by the CMO Alliance, a testament to the results-driven approach and leadership style that define my career.

Over the last 17 years, I’ve led, built, and scaled marketing teams of 30+, managed $75M+ in ad spend, and owned full P&L responsibility all focused on profitable, sustainable growth.

My work spans global brands and fast-growing startups, with results like:

• Luxury Fashion Brand: Scaled to a successful exit

• DTC Apparel: 4.5X ROAS while reducing CAC by 38%

• CPG Brand: Tripled new customer revenue, boosted LTV by 60%

• Fintech Startup: Increased lead conversion by 240%, reduced CPA by 45%

• Financial Services Firm: Built a scalable customer acquisition strategy that doubled inbound leads

Now, with ChannelCore’s evolution, we’re building something bigger designed for the next generation of content creators and brands ready to scale.

Learn more at: https://channelcore.io

I walked into our dev call this week completely burnt out.

I have been running on empty and barely holding it together.

I was about to fake the "let's go team!" energy, that rah-rah founder voice that everyone expects.

That was me.

But something different happened.

My team showed up with progress I wasn't expecting. The UI for one of our agentic models was way further along than I thought and they had a clear plan of action for what's coming next.

They didn't need me to carry the energy.. they brought their own.

And then it clicked:

I don't always have to be the one leading the charge.

As founders, we often feel our job is to be the constant source of motivation, the hype machine, and the one who sets the pace.

But sometimes the best thing you can do is trust your team. Take a step back and let them show you what they've got.

That call didn't drain me. It refueled me.

Not because I had to push through and turn on the performance, but because I let go.

If you're burnt out and trying to hold it all together, maybe you don't have to. Maybe your team is more ready than you think.

Jeremy Grinacoff, MBA

I help the creator economy operate through one shared system by using agentic technology | Founder & CEO ChannelCore |

People love to say this to founders:

“Must be nice not having a boss.”

I know what they mean.

But honestly, that’s one of the biggest misconceptions about building a company.

You don’t lose a boss.

You actually inherit a much heavier one.

The company becomes your boss.
The mission becomes your boss.
The people who chose to build this with you become your boss.

And the expectations aren’t written anywhere.

They just live in your head.

The last few weeks have been a good reminder of that for me.

I’ve been pretty burnt out.

Emotionally and physically drained.
Not sleeping much.

Just a lot happening all at once between life and the business.

There were definitely a few mornings where the thought crossed my mind…

What if I just didn’t push today?

Not quit.

Just… ease off.

But the reality is simple.

If you don’t show up, the work doesn’t get done.

The product doesn’t move forward.
Problems don’t solve themselves.
Momentum doesn’t magically appear.

That’s the part people don’t see when they talk about founder “freedom.”

Yes, technically you work for yourself.

But the responsibility is constant.

It follows you around while you’re making decisions.

It sits in the back of your mind when you’re trying to sleep.

And if you actually care about what you’re building, you don’t get to turn it off.

You just keep showing up.

Even when you’re tired.

Even when progress is slower than you expected.

Even when you’re carrying more in your head than anyone around you realizes.

That’s the job.

Influencer marketing doesn't scale for most brands.

And it's not because the channel doesn't work. It's because the process is a nightmare.

Think about what it actually takes to run one creator partnership:

Find them. DM them. Negotiate. Send a brief. Wait. Follow up. Review content. Request edits. Approve. Track performance in a spreadsheet. Repeat.

That's one creator.

Now try doing that 50 times. Or 200.

You're not running a marketing channel anymore. You're just... managing people. All day.

Most brands think their problem is finding the right creators or measuring ROI. And yeah, those are problems. But the real bottleneck is the process itself. It's all manual. Every partnership needs someone touching it at every step.

That works when you're doing a few campaigns a year. It completely falls apart when you try to scale.

I've been on both sides of this, running campaigns for brands and managing deals for creators. Influencer marketing works. I've seen it.

But until the way we run it changes, it's going to stay in "experimental budget" territory for most companies.

Which is frustrating.

Some days I genuinely question whether I’m capable of pulling this off.

Not because I want to quit.
Because the responsibility is real.

The kind that follows you around while you’re making decisions.

From the outside, it probably looks like I’ve got it handled.
Like I know exactly where this is going.

I am 100% clear on the vision.

But building an early-stage company means making high-stakes decisions with incomplete information and living with them. It means choosing a direction when five paths all seem viable and none of them come with guarantees.

And the weight of that doesn’t stay at work.

There’s financial pressure. There’s speed pressure. There’s the responsibility of not letting the team feel the anxiety you’re managing in your own head.

Then there’s the part no one prepares you for...how much of this becomes mental.

Working remote. Sitting alone with your thoughts. Running scenarios over and over. Wondering if you’re about to make the wrong call. Wondering if this is the decision that sets you back six months.

And underneath all of it is the fear that it might not work.

Because people put their trust in you.

If ChannelCore failed tomorrow, that’s what would hurt.

The team.
My family.
The trust.

Here’s what I’m learning:

Clarity and certainty are not the same thing.

You can see the vision clearly and still wrestle with doubt.

Leadership isn’t about eliminating that doubt.

It’s about carrying it and moving forward anyway.

Most brands say they want creator marketing to be a performance channel.

But very few run it like one.

Not because creators don’t drive revenue.
They do.

The real issue is structure.

Performance channels all share the same operating model:

You can attribute outcomes.
You can see performance in real time.
You can shift budget toward what’s working.
And you can repeat the system.

Paid search has this.
Paid social has this.

Creator marketing doesn’t.

Which is why so many teams still end up in the same meeting trying to answer the same question:

“Did the campaign actually work?”

The moment you can connect:

Creator → Click → Session → Purchase the conversation changes.

You stop debating whether creator marketing works.

And start asking a much more interesting question:

Which creators actually drive revenue?

That’s when creator marketing stops behaving like content
and starts behaving like a channel.

I broke the full measurement framework down here:
[link below]

How to prove influencer marketing ROI

The creator economy is entering its infrastructure phase.

Access was phase one.
Experimentation was phase two.

Standardization is next.

Creators are no longer just creators.
They’re businesses.

Brands are no longer experimenting with creator marketing.
They’re allocating real budgets.

But the systems connecting both sides haven’t matured at the same pace.

Most campaigns are still run through spreadsheets, screenshots, and scattered tools.

That gap is infrastructure.

In my latest conversation with Net Influencer, I talk about why the next phase of the creator economy isn’t more marketplaces or point solutions.

It’s shared operating systems.

Infrastructure is inevitable.

We’re building it.

Check it out!

Open article: Is Influencer Marketing Ready for Performance Discipline? Jeremy Grinacoff Makes the Case for Infrastructure by netinfluencer.com

Is Influencer Marketing Ready for Performance Discipline? Jeremy Grinacoff Makes the Case for Infrastructure

A lot of people hear the word infrastructure and immediately think software.

That’s not really what it is.

Infrastructure is what lets an industry scale without constantly breaking.

Paid media has it.
Affiliate has it.
Even email marketing has it.

Creator marketing… not so much.

Which is kind of strange when you think about how big this space has become.

Every day there are thousands of brand partnerships happening.

But behind the scenes there's a lot of manual workflows STILL happening through spreadsheets, DMS, and multiple tools.

The activity is massive but the systems underneath it are still catching up.

That’s the shift happening right now with ChannelCore, Inc.

The creator economy isn’t just getting bigger.

It’s starting to get structured.

I talked about this shift in a recent conversation with Net Influencer... 

Infrastructure will be the most important layer of the creator economy.

We finally cracked a big one:

Tracking, optimizing, and scaling influencer marketing all on one platform.

Brands and creators no longer have to guess or stitch together disconnected data.

But here’s the reality about startups:

Some days feel like everything’s moving fast.

Other days, it’s slow. Like you’re waiting forever for the next milestone.

The key isn’t to sprint all the time.

It’s to keep making progress, even if it’s small, by sticking to the core problem you’re solving.

Building something new isn’t a straight line.

But when you focus on what matters, the progress adds up.

If you’re stuck grinding through the slow days right now, don’t confuse the pace with the direction. 

Keep solving the right problems. 

The momentum will come.

Startup reality check

Here's why creator marketing is at a turning point (and what it means for brands and creators)

Creator marketing is at a real inflection point right now.

Brands are investing more than ever, but measuring impact remains frustratingly inconsistent. 

In fact, 50% of marketers say they can't figure out ROI.

The data lives in too many places, making it almost impossible to get a clear picture of what’s truly driving results. 

Budgets are growing, but confidence isn’t keeping up.

Creators face their own struggles: lack of transparent reporting, delayed payments, and often little credit for their work.

These pain points have held creator marketing back from becoming the true performance channel it can be.

But that’s starting to change. The industry finally recognizes we need infrastructure built for transparency, real-time tracking, accurate attribution, and actionable insights.

Building this foundation isn’t easy. It takes systems thought through specifically for the unique challenges of creator marketing.

For me, helping build that infrastructure is more than a business. 

It’s a mission to empower brands and creators to unlock the full potential of this channel.

We’re seeing this shift unfold now, and how brands and creators navigate it will shape who thrives in the next era.

Creator marketing is evolving fast. Those who build on solid foundations will see real, measurable results.

There’s still a lot to figure out but the path forward is clear. And it’s happening right now.

If you’re a brand or creator navigating this space, I’d love to hear your perspective. What’s your biggest challenge? Let’s chat.

Creators. Brands. Performance. | Founder & CEO ChannelCore |

Creator marketing is at a turning point

I’ve been thinking a lot about the word “performance.”

We use it so loosely in marketing.

Every channel is “performance.”
Every campaign is “performance-driven.”
Every recap deck says it “performed.”

But most of it isn’t.

If you can’t tie revenue back to actual transactions…
If you can’t see what’s happening while money is still being spent…
If you can’t shift budget toward high performers in real time…
If every campaign feels like starting from scratch…

That’s not "performance."

And this is where most creator programs break.

The content can look great, it can have high engagement, and the team can feel busy.

But underneath it, there’s no operating layer holding it together.

Performance isn’t a vibe.
It’s attribution + visibility + budget control + repeatable systems.

Remove one and the whole thing collapses.

I broke this down in detail in a recent piece, what actually makes a channel “performance” and why most creator programs fail at visibility and repeatability.

If you’re trying to run creator programs like a real growth channel, not just a content line item, it’s worth the read.

Link in the comments below.

What makes a channel "performance?"

I went from agency owner to tech founder.

Here's why I burned it down and started over.

I was running a performance marketing agency. Solo. 

Doing the work, closing clients, managing campaigns. It was working... until it wasn't.

I hit a ceiling I couldn't break through.

Client churn made revenue unpredictable and scaling meant hiring, but margins were already tight. 

Every conversation with other agency owners was the same: "How do you forecast when a client can leave any month?"

You don't. You just hope.

Then I started offering influencer marketing to clients. That's when everything changed.

I wasn't just working with brands anymore. I was working with creators.

Annnnnd it was a mess.

I remember sitting there at 11pm one night updating the google sheet template I created for a creator. 

Tracking their deals and helping them figure out what to charge. Not just by impressions, but actual performance metrics so the brand could justify the spend and land an easy 'yes.'

Negotiating rates over email. Managing multiple partnerships across tabs. Sending deliverables manually.

I looked at the screen and thought: "Why am I the one doing this? There has got to be a better way."

And the brand side? Same mess. Just from the other angle.

That's when it clicked.

Creators don't have the tools to operate like businesses. Brands don't have the infrastructure to manage creators at scale and actually track performance. 

Both sides are flying blind.

So I shut down the agency.

Walking away from actual revenue to build something that didn't exist yet was absolutely terrifying and there were days I thought "this is fucking crazy?"

Honestly, I still think that sometimes.

But I started building ChannelCore, Inc. anyway.

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